DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro stared into the direction that the Stag was coming from with a deep glare. Why the hell would Lugo bring those two here? Or rather, why would those two come back here at all?!

The demon immediately pulled some more of the invisible liquids toward him and then just tried to use them to keep speeding up his movements some more. Although Eiro wasn't sure that this was a good idea, because at this speed he wasn't necessarily quiet, although he luckily was still invisible.

"Hmm, so you're using tricks, huh..?" Enka muttered quietly and then looked around toward the source of the sound that he heard in this quiet plaza, and just slowly raised his left hand to touch his earring for a moment. And the next moment, Eiro could see the world stop around him again while his body became stuck while Enka just started hitting his fists against each other repeatedly.

The first explosion caused by this was only able to roughly grow to the size of a fist. The second one made it grow to the size of a head. The third then made it to be larger than Avalin or Leon. The fourth made it larger than than Rudy.

Again and again, the explosion kept growing immensely with the force that Enka was creating. The mass of flames grew and grew until it covered a quarter of the plaza. But then, near to instantly those flames shrunk down into small, incredibly hot flames that Enka was holding in his hand. And the next thing he did was just throw his fist forward into the direction where he thought to have heard the sound of Eiro moving.

The flames slowly crept forward toward the Demon while the world sped up again. In the next moment, Eiro heard the sound of the flames hitting the water that was surrounding Eiro. The Demon was able to mostly block and avert the flames from reaching him through those liquids, but toward the end only very little of it was actually left.

"There we go. Now let's continue where we left off." Enka suggested and stepped closer toward Eiro, who was now at least partially visible to Enka, "Show me where the kids are." He said with clear dedication and force in his voice, but Eiro just looked back at him while ignoring the ringing in his ears.

"Fuck you." The Demon replied, but that just made Enka glare back at him. The man approached the heavily injured Eiro and just held his hand forward toward him, placing his fingers onto his face once he reached Eiro within what seemed to be just a moment somehow.

"Then let's try this another way. You saw my status, so I'm sure you saw my skills as well. You remember a particular one of them? A skill that lets me cause pain to you while causing minimal damage to your health?" Enka asked with a deep glare as he pushed Eiro to his knee, something that was rather easy since one of his legs was broken.

And with a light chuckle, Enka just continued once he saw that Eiro was this weak in comparison to him, "You know, after my torture skill reached a certain level, I was able to notice something in other people, the essence of their Health, basically. By avoiding the places where that essence gathers, I can do little to no actual damage despite causing immense pain, while the opposite is also possible." He pointed out, and Eiro immediately knew what he was speaking about. Life Force. So Enka had an ability to sense life force?

"The thing is... You have way less of that essence than a monster of your caliber should have, you know? That makes my job far harder. But I don't blame you, it's not your fault for being weak. Just don't blame me if I accidentally kill you, alright?" Enka asked and slowly started pushing his fingers into the Demon's temple.

No damage notification appeared in response to this, but what did appear was an immense amount of pain. Pain that travelled through Eiro's whole body and caused any control that he had over the invisible liquids to disappear and his body became fully visible to Enka again.

"Hmm, that's an expression that I like to see." He said in a gleeful tone as the pressure, and in response to that the pain, increased manyfold. Eiro tried looking up at Enka with a deep glare, attempting to think of any way out. But before he could do that, the sound of hoofs became louder and louder, and soon reached the plaza.

The next thing that Eiro heard was the sound of footsteps rushing over toward where the Eiro and Enka were standing, "Let go of my father, you piece of shit!" Arc exclaimed as he swung his sword toward Enka with an expression that Eiro had never seen on his face before. But the moment that the Level 1 Samurai did so, his sword was simply casually grabbed by Enka.

"Oh? So he's good at brainwashing, huh?" Enka said with a smile and then started to laugh as he slipped his hand to the back of Eiro's neck and simply held him up, causing the Imp's face to twist in pain even further, "He's a demon, kid. A monster. How about instead of following this thing here, you come with me instead? Seems like you're already on pretty good terms with my own son." The man said and looked past Arc toward Felix, who was just climbing off of Lugo's back and staring at Eiro confusedly.

Eiro wanted to speak and warn those two to just leave immediately and let him be, but his voice couldn't escape his body. He tried to instead let Nelli know about his thoughts somehow, but he noticed that she had left toward the lake. Eiro was completely confused about why she would suddenly go there, but he trusted the Naiad. There had to be a good reason for why she just left like that.

"So what if he's a monster? He's a better father than that useless piece of shit that 'raised' me until I was seven. Actually, he's the best father someone like me could have hoped for. So let him go, you-" Arc said, but the next moment, Enka's hand let go of the katana and instead moved around Arc's throat.

"Hahh... Kids these days... How dare you speak like that about adults? Especially the man who you owe your life to. How respectless." Enka glared, "Let me teach you what a real father should act like. And after that, my own son will be re-educated as well." He announced, but Arc just kept glaring at Enka.

With a slight smirk, the man ran his finger over toward Arc's chest, "Seems like you need to really experience the extent of pain. Let me show you one of my favorites. This spot here makes grown warriors scream like little kids whenever I make use of it." Enka explained, and just pressed his finger deep into the center of Arc's chest at an immense speed. It seemed like there was a bit of a rhythm to it even, although Eiro wasn't sure why that was so.

But the thing was... Arc just kept standing there as his glare slowly turned into a smile again. "Huh? That's all you can do? That didn't even tickle." The boy announced, and Enka looked at him confusedly.

"How the..?" He muttered and chose to just try again, continuosly hitting Arc's chest like that over and over again.

There was no damage notification popping up in front of Arc, and since he was able to keep his composure that easily, Eiro was sure that this really wasn't enough to make Arc feel actual pain. Eiro still didn't like it, but it was better if Enka kept being stuck on something like that for now, as long as-

"F-Father! Please stop! I... I'll go back with you, so just leave them be!" Felix yelled out, and the very same moment, both Arc and Eiro were thinking what an idiot he was.

"Of course you're coming back with me." Enka chuckled quietly, "There was no other way than that in the first place. That doesn't mean I'm just going to leave these two be. Especially not this kid, he seems like a good... practice partner." Enka pointed out with a deep and devious glare directed at Arc, who was simply smiling back at the man.

"Yeah, about that, I don't think that's as good an idea as you're making it out to be. It's just going to be boring either way. I don't feel pain, so neither of us gets anything out of this. You obviously can't hurt me, if this is supposed to be one of your most painful techniques." Arc said provokingly, and Enka stared at him with a light smirk. It was obvious that he was falling for it, sine he soon let go of Eiro's throat and placed his hands on both of Arc's shoulders.

"I hope you won't regret saying that in a bit." Enka muttered while Eiro was still trying to recover from the pain that he was just put under. It just got way worse because of the pain he already felt due to the bloodlust wearing off.

But the moment that his body could move again, Eiro grabbed one of his daggers from his treasury and immediately swung it at Enka's leg. It passed through into his skin through one of the wounds that Eiro caused to him with the invisible ice-spears, but somehow instead of blood gushing out, flames shot toward him and slightly burnt his skin.

"Ah, sorry, just wait a bit longer. I'll get to you in a bit." Enka said before raising his left hand to touch his earring again. When time slowed down and a crack formed in the earring, Enka started repeatedly trying to cause pain to different parts of Arc's body, although it didn't seem like he was actually directly injuring him all that much. The only damage notifications that popped up were worth damage in single or double digits, after all.

When time sped back up, it seemed like Arc's body suddenly arched over a bit in response to the sudden influx of 'pain', although it still didn't seem to be all that serious. Arc was probably just acting right now. But with a laugh, Enka, whose ego had been slightly hurt by Arc, didn't notice that and just laughed in response and turned toward Eiro after letting go of Arc for good, thinking that the boy would collapse any moment now.

"Well then, so much about him not feeling pain, huh?" He asked, and then suddenly opened his eyes wide, "..Huh..?" He repeated and then looked down at the blade that was being pushed through the side of his body. It wasn't a perfect hit, but since there were relatively little muscles and bones in this spot, Arc probably chose to go for this spot to be able to actually pierce through.

"Just kidding~!" Arc exclaimed with a slight laugh, but the very next moment, Enka pushed Arc away while the blade was still sticking in him. And Eiro was able to come to a conclusion over Enka's flame-based ability through all of this.

But while Arc was sliding across the ground, something that Eiro really didn't expect happened.

Felix tried to hold his father down and wanted to push him away, "Please, let's just leave. Th-They're no match for you anyway, so let's just go..."

With a deep grunt, Enka pulled the katana out of his body and threw it to the ground before flames came out of the wound and burnt it shut shortly afterward, "You know what? Fine. We're leaving in a bit. But first..." Enka said and then pulled his son closer toward him, holding the boy in front of his body. Enka had both of his hands placed onto Felix's ears, "It's time for a punishment." Enka announced.

And the next that Eiro knew it, he stared into Felix's eyes as they became filled with pain, and Eiro knew exactly why.. Felix started screaming out loudly while his own father pushed flame magic into his ears.